Music: Initial count 10439 [10390] rated (+49), 893 [887] unrated (+6).
Surprised the rated total climed so much, but I've been slogging through
the unrated new jazz at a furious pace, not stopping to write much. New
Recycled Goods is waiting post at Static; new Jazz CG should be posted
this week; smooth jazz piece might come out the following week (at least
I'm getting production-type questions about it). Doing research work on
jazz labels. Mail picked up, with a box from IndieGo, a Denver publicist
handling Dune and Synergy Music, and a big package from Verve with the
Free America reissues.

Janssen Glerum Janssen: Zwik (1996-97, Geestgronden).
That's Guus Janssen (piano), Ernst Glerum (double bass), Wim Janssen
(drums). The first Janssen builds this mostly out of riddim fragments,
which is what I like to hear. A-

David Sanborn: Timeagain (2003, Verve). I really have
no complaints about Sanborn's alto sax playing. I like his tone, and am
rarely disappointed by his logic. He does something sensible with "Isn't
She Lovely" (Stevie Wonder) here, not just instrumentalizing it but
improvising a bit. What we can complain about is everything else: the
synths are background, the voices coloring. He's like a live character
in a cartoon, acting against an empty backdrop that will be filled in
by the animators. That he's as good at it as he is may be because his
musical ambitions are so circumscribed. B

Bettye Swann (1968-70 [2004], Honest Jons).
Another obscure late-'60s soul singer following in the wake of
this label's Candi Staton archaeology; she isn't an
earthshaking singer, but she satisfies those craving for more --
at least until the ideas get thinner than her voice. B+

Wesla Whitfield: With a Song in My Heart (1999,
High Note). A full program of Rodgers and Hart, done as simply as
possible with just piano and bass accompaniment. Some good stuff
here, but some of it drags too. B

Juan Cole
has an interesting post comparing the Republicans' handling of the Schiavo
case to Islamist tactics. The difference is that we don't exactly have
sharia courts here to enforce religious interference with personal life.
What Cole doesn't do is to point out that such tactics in the U.S., at
least thus far, are designed to fail, and by failing are meant to further
convince the religious right that the heathen court system is hellbent
on destroying Christianity. The "ten commandments" cases are examples
of this. Of course, we can't count on them failing forever. It was easy
for Thomas Frank to write that no amount of voting against abortion in
Kansas has outlawed it, but it does make a difference when the Attorney
General can use his office to harrass abortion clinics, as he has done
repeatedly.

The Schiavo case completely dominated the editorial page of the
Eagle today, with left (Molly Ivins) and right (Cal Thomas) columns,
a Crowson cartoon, and most of the letters section. The low point
was Thomas comparing Schiavo to Rosa Parks. I didn't bother reading
Ivins, probably sparing myself the revelation that Tom DeLay is
vermin, but Crowson got it right. First panel: "Why do 70% of
Americans say Congress has no place at the bedside of Terry
Schiavo?" Second: "Maybe it's because so many Americans have
stood by similar bedsides, like my family did . . . and never
once wished for a politician."

Helena Cobban's blog
has a counter called "Democracy Denied in Iraq Watch": it's now 52
days after Iraq's much touted free and democratic elections, yet no
new government has been allowed to come to power. I think that it
is now clear that the 2/3 supermajority requirement was, if not
designed strictly to fail, at least designed to make it impossible
for an anti-U.S. government to take power. The Bush administration
remains convinced that the secret to winning is not losing, and the
longer than can keep from losing the better their chances of winning.
Assuming, of course, that there's anything left to win. The other
precept here seems to be that chaos favors the side with the most
guns and bombs, which is clearly the U.S. Again, even if the U.S.
didn't deliberately work to provoke civil war in Iraq (and I'm not
convinced that it didn't), it certainly didn't do any of the things
that were necessary to prevent it. Such cynicism is rarely correct,
but this may be an exception.

Rare good sense from an economist, in James K. Galbraith's
Salon
piece on Greenspan and deficits: "But just how is it that pensions
for the elderly and payments to doctors and nurses hurt the economy?
To begin with, such payments are the economy . . . Purchases of medical
care add directly to GDP, as do expenditures of the incomes provided
to seniors." Galbraith goes on to argue that the Democrats should give
up their latterday flirtation with fiscal responsibility. Balanced
budgets depress the economy, and the U.S. economy is already threadbare
from decades of inadequate infrastructure spending, so any depressive
effect is likely to be an insurmountable burden. What we really need
is to make those neglected investments, and if that means deficit
spending we'll still be better off in the future. Still, all of this
depends on a skill that economists, or for that matter politicians,
have never developed: the ability to distinguish between worthwhile
investments and foolish ones. Both, after all, add to the GDP, but
not everything that adds to GDP makes our lives better.

One of the major gas station/convenience store chains in
Wichita, Quick Trip, has just switched to a pre-pay scheme. This
sort of thing bothers me a lot: I prefer to pay cash for gas, I
always fill up the tank (and therefore never know just how much
it's going to cost), and I hate the waste of making two trips
to the checkout counter. I also deplore the lack of trust that
this shows -- sure, it's not personal, but that's why I see it
as a societal problem. Quick Trip offers a way around this: an
identity card that can be plugged into the credit card slot to
turn the pump on. No doubt the FBI will appreciate the data.

There's more where those came from, plus 2004 and more. I don't claim
to be any sort of oracle. Some things I expected to go wrong didn't really
materialize, and I didn't anticipate many other things. The level of
American political incompetency has regularly astounded, but the single
most astonishing thing is how this disaster helped to win Bush the 2004
election.

Meanwhile, the big news story is how Congressional Republicans
are working to put Terry Schiavo back on her feeding tube. I suppose
the fact that she has no functional brain or sensation and is utterly
dependent on an umbilical cord for life, such as it is, has reduced
her to some kind of fetus. Until the politicians got involved this
was a sad personal story of no real interest beyond the family, and
it ought to have been dealt with there. Issues like this happen often
enough these days. I've been involved in two such cases -- with my
first wife, and with my mother -- but those decisions were made by
consensus with others. This case is exceptional not so much because
of the facts as because the family wasn't able to get together on
what to do.

There are difficult problems in "medical ethics" -- I think that's
the term people use for the sort of decisions that recent advances in
medical technology makes more and more common -- and this case has
some of them. But its emergence as a political cause is very peculiar
and rather disturbing. We've seen a growing tendency to personalize
political issues, confusing them with celebrity matters -- I'm thinking
of things like the Brady Bill and Megan's Law, but there are many more
examples. This works because we can relate to personal problems, but
we don't seem to be able to conceive of the gravity issues acquire
in aggregate. One person in a coma, torn between husband and parents,
is a situation we easily relate to, which makes it an easy situation
to exploit politically. Hundreds or thousands of people who can't get
time-critical emergency treatment, e.g. for heart attack or stroke,
because we don't have enough emergency room capacity -- that's a real
political problem, but it seems abstract until you start mapping it
to real people. That could be done, of course -- both sides can and
do play this game. But shifting focus from the general to the personal
especially benefits the side opposed to aggregates, like the masses.
Moreover, the person doesn't have to be sympathetic, especially when
you wish to focus wrath -- e.g., the War Against Saddam, in which
hundreds of thousands of ordinary Iraqis are mere statistics.

Airtran has come back to the Wichita city government with hat
in hand looking for increased subsidies. A few years back Wichita
was squeezed by airlines charging so much to fly in and out of town
that many residents had taken to driving to Kansas City or Oklahoma
City in order to get affordable rates. Wichita finally lured Airtran
to open low-priced flights to Chicago (since cancelled) and Atlanta
by guaranteeing certain revenue levels. Airtran maxed out its subsidy
that year and two more, and now wants uncapped subsidies for next
year. The idea that they needed those subsidies until business took
off is fading. Just goes to show you that welfare cheats won't stop
taking as long as gullible politicians are willing to shell out.

Despite all the so-called free market fundamentalism that Kansas
is famous for, there is a long tradition of government financial
support for businesses here -- not least being the $500M in bonds
that the state underwrote for Boeing before the company sold off
its plant here. One thing we should have learned from all this
experience is that there is a big difference between businesses
whose owners live here and businesses who only come here for the
money. Wichita grew back when the airplane companies were owned
by Wichitans. So I'm wondering, if the whole city/area depends on
good, reasonably priced airline connections, why bribe Airtran?
Why not start our own airline? Wichita would be a hub, and the
government could subsidize the airport and similar expenses. The
talent basis for running a small airline certainly exists here,
and the airline would create real jobs here. It would take some
serious financing, but if the state can swing $500M for Boeing,
it should be able to help out here. And to keep the ownership
local, how about selling stock with strict limits against too
much concentration (like a 1% maximum)? Sure, the stockholders
might be more concerned with what the airline can do for Wichita
than how much profit they can squeeze out of it. But would that
be a bad thing?

Michael Lind on Paul Wolfowitz (in Salon): "Wolfowitz is the
Mr. Magoo of American foreign policy. Like the myopic cartoon
character, Wolfowitz stumbles onward blindly and serenely, leaving
wreckage and confusion behind." And: "We live in a country in which
privates are punished for the crimes of generals, so it is only
natural that Wolfowitz should be rewarded for his blunders, errors
and miscalculations that have cost the American and Iraqi people
so much by promotion to the World Bank. That's the way it is with
Mr. Magoo. Whenever he steps blindly out of a building he has
accidentally set on fire, a truck is always conveniently passing
by."

Joseph Stiglitz, the former chief economist at the World Bank and
author of Globalization and Its Discontents, has also come out
against Wolfowitz's nomination. The good thing, I suppose, is that it
would get Wolfowitz out of the Defense Department before he can start
another war. But the whole third world has plenty to blame the World
Bank and IMF for already, and it probably wouldn't take much for
those disputes to erupt into revolts. That's a pretty dangerous
situation to throw Mr. Magoo into.

Music: Initial count 10390 [10372] rated (+18), 887 [880] unrated (+17).
Finished Recycled Goods, pending edit. Finished Smooth Jazz piece, edited.
Mostly played new jazz, and didn't make up my mind much, so the newly
rated count took a dive. Actually, there are some good things in the
queue: Avishai Cohen, William Parker, Jerry Granelli, Happy Apple, Tony
Malaby, Russ Johnson, Sirone Bang Ensemble, Blood Ulmer, Rez Abbasi,
Jeff Parker, Dave Ellis, Jason Moran, DJ Spooky, Ian Hendrickson-Smith.
Don't think they're all A-, but those that aren't are solid B+. Would
like to make some progress on JCG and RG this week, although neither
are urgent. Might be a good time to knock off some backlog.

The Arcade Fire: Funeral (2004, Merge). Rated high
in most year-end lists for last year. It has an impressive pop largesse,
but feels heavy to me, like most of the prog side of the fence. Doubt
that it will grow on me enough to put it over the top. B+

The Clash: London Calling: 25th Anniversary Legacy Edition
(1979 [2004], Epic/Legacy, 2CD+DVD). The original LP is one of the greatest
rock records ever made. It retained much of the power and fury of their
first album, added the production skills of the second, and took the
songwriting to a whole new level. It's available separately, without
a shred of doubt an A+. This adds a second disc of "previously unheard
rehearsal sessions including five new songs"; also a DVD and a booklet.
Booklet's nice. The unheard tapes remind us how little is left in the
attic given all the previous exploitation. The DVD is, well, a DVD --
haven't watched it, probably won't. Documentation is a plus, but not
a big one. B

Dub Syndicate: Pure Thrillseekers (2005, Shanachie).
Guests from Gregory Isaacs to Luciano give it up to Adrian Sherwood's
dub laboratory, yielding an impeccable and timeless and ultimately
rather anonymous entourage of dub effects; a perfect album, if you
like, or if you don't. B+

The Reverend Al Green: Everything's OK (2005, Blue
Note). Despite the honorific in the credit, this isn't a Green gospel
album. It has some charms of his classic albums ("You Are So Beautiful"
is one of those covers that henceforth, for better or worse, he owns),
but it strikes me as rushed and artificially pumped up. Everything's
not OK, not really, and while on some level I envy his ignorance, I
can't envy his enthusiasm about it. B

Patty Griffin: Impossible Dream (2004, ATO). A
singer-songwriter on the folk periphery. This has a tight, intimate
feel, which nicely sets off her rather plain voice. Not sure how
good this record really is: working off a library copy, so I can't
spend much time here, and it's not the sort of thing I do a good
job of concentrating on. B+

Zbigniew Karkowski: One and Many (2005, Sub Rosa).
Intended as "an ode to loudspeakers" -- various electronic drones
of various pitches and volumes, the transitions sometimes shocking.
Maybe the loudspeakers dig it. My backgrounder says that Karkowski
studied with Iannis Xenakis, who was another composer with an
inordinate fondness for stupid amplifier tricks. C-

M.I.A.: Arular (2005, Beggars/XL). Not sure where
the beats come from, but they're looser and more idiosyncratic than
Bhangra. Not sure where the words are going, but I trust the beats.
A-

Pavement: Crooked Rain, Crooked Rain: L.A.'s Desert
Origins (1993-94 [2004], Matador, 2CD). The tracks on the
second disc were unreleased experiments -- some rough drafts for the
album, most just idea pieces. That they work as well as they do is a
tribute to the band's buoyancy. They were the definitive rock group of
the mid-'90s, and they did it by taking exceptionally difficult music
and making it sound miraculous. The first disc starts with the
42-minute album, then appends B-sides and ephemera like the tail on a
kite. The music dips and flutters and soars.
A-

The Rough Guide to Bellydance ([2002], World Music
Network). Middle Eastern dance music, one Turkish, mostly scattered
Arab, including a couple from California; recent (as far as I can tell),
but sounds archaic, with a focus on beat and body movement.
B+

Bush's nomination of Paul Wolfowitz to head the World Bank
could hardly be riper. The comparisons to Robert McNamara are
inevitable: both were shuttled from the DOD and disastrous wars
they were largely responsible for. But Wolfowitz is no McNamara.
For one thing, McNamara had a real career in business before he
became Secretary of Defense, whereas Wolfowitz has never been
anything but an academic and a political flack. In other words,
McNamara had experience in real world problems; Wolfowitz, in
turn, has specialized in theory and rhetoric -- most of which
have proven to be spectacularly wrong-headed. Wolfwitz's take
on economics is as wrong-headed as his delusions about war and
politics. He is far to the right of the so-called Washington
Consensus -- the set of far-right economic doctrines that seek
to make the world safe for investment by undermining any option
that states may actually seek to serve their citizens.

This subject is so rich that I can't begin to do it justice
here. But one more thing that I have to point out is that this
is further proof that Bush has suspended the Peter Principle:
the idea that people rise to their level of incompetency and
stay there. Until Bush came along incompetency was seen as
at least something to downplay; now it's the aspiring bureaucrat's
meal ticket. I've said this before, but it bears repeating: first
rate people hire first rate people; second rate people hire third
rate people. I'm not even sure Bush is second rate these days.

Iraq's "freely elected" National Assembly finally assembled
yesterday, without agreement on a new government, and therefore
with the old bunch of cronies still in place. Plus ça ne change
pas, plus c'est le même fucking chose. Nothing in Iraq will change
for the better until there is an Iraqi political force that can
throttle the American occupation. The idea that the U.S. can just
stretch out sham democracy until it has time to beat down the
resistance is criminal.

Looks more likely that Bush will be able to give the oil
industry a big chunk of Alaska to drill in. I'm actually surprised
that they haven't been able to get away with this before. As a
long term proposition, it is certain that every drop of Alaskan
crude will be sucked from the ground and converted into greenhouse
gases -- this is only a matter of time and details: who profits?
who suffers? who gets paid off?

Other Bush legislative "victories": tort reform and
bankruptcy reform. I have no doubt that both need reform, and
no doubt that what the Republicans have pushed through isn't
the sort of reform needed. But I'm fuzzy on details, in large
part because these are residual issues -- i.e., they are the
spoils of more basic problems. The right to sue companies for
compensation for all sort of malfeasances is but one rather
inefficient way to check corporate abuses. The more basic
problem is the economic system and its attendant morality (or
lack thereof) that motivates those abuses. Similarly, bankruptcy
is a way of mitigating economic calamities that are caused by
other problems -- 50% or more by medical expenses, some smaller
portion by credit card usury. The pre-reform laws were basically
safety nets that limited the powerful from abusing their power.
The reforms were meant to weaken the safety nets and to buttress
the powerful, who can only be expected to become more arrogant.
When this happens the system inches closer to catastrophe and
collapse. It's unlikely that either of these issues will loom
large in that collapse, but they are steps in that direction.
The rule of thumb is that every Bush "victory" is another thing
that will eventually have to be undone.

Headline: "Obesity could curb U.S. life expectancy." The
projection now is that life expectancy in the U.S. will decline
by 2-5 years in the coming decades. Couldn't possibly be because
the politically sheltered health care system is dysfunctional,
for many inaccessible, and generally rotten to the core.

I still haven't followed through on moving the blog political
articles back to Notes on Everyday Life or various other projects
and reorganizations in the works. Been writing about Smooth Jazz,
of all things. More on that later. Maybe more Wolfowitz too. The
interesting thing about that nomination will be to see whether
the U.S. still has enough clout in capitalist world to push such
a blatantly political nominee through the system. When the World
Bank was founded the U.S. was banker to the world; today we're
the world's largest debtor nation. It's interesting that Bush and
the Republicans have no qualms about surrendering U.S. sovereignty
to capitalist-run organizations like the W.T.O., but they refuse
to join the World Court. If they did, the Hague could do us all
a favor and indict Wolfowitz for war crimes. He is the poster boy
for America's abuse of power in the world today.

Music: Initial count 10372 [10312] rated (+60), 880 [903] unrated (-23).
The big jump in ratings was due to two special factors: I went through the
unrated list and found a bunch of things that had been rated elsewhere but
not copied into the database; I also went through the old writings where
I had written CG reviews of various '70s LPs that weren't in the ratings
database, so I added most of them -- even though some I have only the
vaguest memory of. Probably did more new records this past week than I
have since before I took ill 5-6 weeks ago. Unrated list dropped under
900 for the first time in six months or so. I have stuff here that I
haven't listed yet, but it's more like ten than twenty records. Need
to write the smooth jazz piece this coming week. Also to finish the
"February" Recycled Goods, which should have been done long ago. Still
no news on when Jazz Consumer Guide runs.

Acoustic Alchemy: Radio Contact (2003, Higher
Octave). Greg Carmichael plays nylon string guitar; Miles Gilderdale
plays steel string guitar: that gives you an idea of the dynamic
range of this group. Sometimes they get bit more ambitious and
bring in Chuck Loeb to play electric guitar. Bass, keyboards,
and percussion also show up, but the loping guitar riddims are
the essence of the group. Easy listening almost to the point of
sensory deprivation. C+

The Essential Gene Autry (1931-51 [2005],
Columbia/Legacy, 2CD). Before he became the king of the celluloid
cowboys, he did a pretty decent Jimmie Rodgers impersonation; his
signature hits have a common elegance that argues that he earned
his stardom, but this goes on too long -- over the deep end of
Korean War jingoism, with at least five songs I never want to
hear again, starting with an atomic-charged "God Bless America"
and ending with the definitive "Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer."
B-

Brian Culbertson: Come On Up (2003, Warner Brothers).
Seventh album, going back to 1994. Plays a little trombone, but his main
function here is keyboards and programming. Guest features for Steve Cole
(tenor sax), Marcus Miller (bass), Rahsaan Patterson (vocals), Rick Braun
(trumpet), Norman Brown (guitar) -- did he forget anyone? Culbertson
wrote or co-wrote everything here but the one great song, "Serpentine
Fire," where the horns sound like they came from a synth even though
a real horn section was attributed -- can't let brass get in the way
of the leader's piano track or Miller's bass funk. B-

Rosco Gordon: No Dark in America (2002 [2005],
Dualtone). A whiff of fame from his feature in the Martin Scorsese
blues series gets him a new record, then he dies, which may be why
they didn't try to clean up or sort out this mess; he's all pounding
piano and gravelly voice here, strikingly crude on "You Look Bad
When You're Naked." B

Arthur Lipner: The Magic Continues (1993, Palmetto).
Marimba, vibes, one cut with steel pans. Bob Ward is credited with
"chuckles, grunts." Other credits include electric guitar, electric
bass, keyboards. IOW, this roughly fits into the smooth jazz realm,
although it is still attached to the post-bop jazz orbit. Light,
mostly inoffensive. B-

Now That Sounds Kosher! (1955-2004 [2005], Shout!
Factory). most of the jokes are as obvious and trivial as "Be True to
Your Shul" by the Beach Boychiks and "Man of Constant Tsuris" by the
Soggy Matzoh Boys, but songs by Mickey Katz, Allan Sherman, and Tom
Lehrer are classics of a type, and Mel Brooks' Torquemada musical is
classic; choice cut: "You'll Never Get the Party Started," by Mrs.
Pinkus.
B+

Lonnie Liston Smith & the Cosmic Echoes: Visions of
a New World (1975, Flying Dutchman/RCA). Smith's keyboards
are rather dreamy but insubstantial. Donald Smith's vocals are a
good deal more problematic: the first piece, "A Chance for Peace,"
at least has a message, and something of a beat; beyond that this
wanders and warbles. Hard not to get dizzy amidst all the cosmic
echoes. B-

Urban Knights V (2003, Narada Jazz). If the
opener sounds unusually funky, check the credits: it's Marvin
Gaye's "Got to Give It Up," and it's never sounded lamer. The
other obvious piece is "I Can See Clearly Now" -- ditto. The
piano player (Ramsey Lewis) is not without talent, the cover
art is nice, and the faux funk is a bit more varied than what
I heard on VI, but I'll be damned if I'm going to play
them again to figure out which one has the edge. C

More ex-LP items, usual caveats:

Ashford & Simpson: Is It Still Good to Ya (1978, Warner Brothers) B+

Kevin Ayers: Joy of a Toy (1970, Harvest) B+

Jackson Browne: Running on Empty (1977, Asylum) B

The Buzzcocks: Lest We Forget (1988, ROIR) B+

Dirty Tricks: Night Man (1976, Polydor) B+

Al Jarreau: Look to the Rainbow (1977, Warner Brothers) C+

Andy Pratt: Resolution (1976, Nemperor) C+

Simple Minds: Themes for Great Cities (1981, Stiff) B-

Sparks: A Wolfer in Tweeter's Clothing (1972, Bearsville) B-

That Petrol Emotion: End of the Millennium Psychosis Blues (1988, Virgin) B-

More than a month after the Iraqi elections -- you know, America's
gift to democracy in the Middle East -- the U.S.-appointed government is
still in power, and there are persistent rumours that Iyad Allawi -- the
U.S.-appointed incumbent who got 15% of the vote -- is trying to pull
together some sort of coalition to remain in office. The two-thirds
supermajority rule looks to be doing its job as a spanner in the
works.

Yesterday's massive Hizbullah demonstration in Beirut should
make one think twice before jumping on the anti-Syrian propaganda
bandwagon. Syria has a checkered history in Lebanon and ought to
withdraw, but as a foreign occupier they've managed to maintain
their presence far more deftly than the U.S. in Iraq or Israel in
the West Bank, Gaza, and Lebanon itself from 1982-2000.

U.S. forces in Iraq shot an Italian hostage being freed and
killed her escort. There's debate as to whether this was deliberate
or an accident. I don't think the accident scenario makes the U.S.
look any better. As Frank Smith wrote [Peace and Justice Kansas
email list]:

If you'll recall, Bush I "accidentally" bombed and flattened the
impoverished El Chorillo barrio in Panama when he was trying to get
his old CIA ally, Noriega. Reagan "accidentally" bombed a mental
hospital in Grenada and "accidentally" bombed the French Embassy
in Tripoli, Libya. Clinton "accidentally" bombed the Chinese
Embassy in Belgrade. We bombed, strafed and napalmed fleeing
civilians in Korea and Viet Nam. We annihilated the largest
Christian community in Japan when Truman atom bombed the fairly
insignificant military target of Nagasaki.

We've "accidentally" bombed wedding parties of the "liberated"
in Afghanistan and Iraq. We've "accidentally" killed Pat Tillman,
an Arizona Cardinal football star in Afghanistan, and Bush I's
forces "accidentally" shelled U.S. tanks during the first Gulf
War and Bush II's "accidentally" shelled the Palestine Hotel,
full of journalists, in Gulf War II.

Smith could have added the ski lift in Italy that a U.S. Air
Force pilot took out a few years ago. Let's face it, Accidents
'R' US.

Two important articles on religion and politics appeared in
the last few days. Bill Moyers, in New York Review of Books, has
an essay on end-of-times theology and environmental policy -- who
needs an environment when we're all gonna die? William Dowell, in
TomDispatch,
writes about the far right's Ten Commands fetish. It's one of the
clearest explanations I've read on how breaking down the separation
between politics and religion cheapens and destroys religion.

Another Boeing executive bites the dust: Harry Stonecipher,
who is also a major stockholder from the McDonnell-Douglas side of
the merger. He got dinged for a consensual affair with an employee,
which is one of those odd twists like Bernard Kerik's nanny problem,
or Al Capone's tax returns. Stonecipher seems to have been the main
architect of Boeing's recent transformation from the world's largest
airframe manufacturer and America's largest exporter to second place
behind Airbus. This was accomplished by shedding jobs and assets
(including Wichita's huge Boeing plant) so that the company could
concentrate on its real core business: political influence peddling.
Given how ineptly they've handled their corruption racket, it may
be a good thing that they're not going to be actually building
airplanes any more.

I've been thinking about this blog. The idea here was to write more
frequently and more varied notes -- shorter ones. But thus far this
blog has been taken over by political rants, which is supposed to be
the purpose of my Notes on
Everyday Life site. I think the thing to do is to go back and
copy the political stuff here to Notes, and in the future just put
the pieces there, with notices and links from here. Will take a while
to do that, but that's the new operational plan.

A change here is that I'll add categories for News and Media.
I'm thinking that News will be a series of short comments on the
days news stories, without breaking them down into topics. Media
will comment on newspapers, magazines, television, things like
that -- radio, I suppose, not that I ever listen to radio. Don't
watch much TV either. I already have separate categories for
Books, Music, and Movies, so they're excluded from Media.

Also working on recasting this website to use a common design
layout -- this one, perhaps unfortunately -- and tools. This has
dragged on for weeks, and I haven't posted what I've done. In the
long run "ocston" will go away, but I continue to do most of my
work there. Just broke smooth jazz out from the regular jazz
listings. I don't mean to be a snob there, but it really is a
distinct form of music, and the breakout makes it easier to
gauge.

Music: Initial count 10312 [10281] rated (+31), 903 [900] unrated (+3).
Mostly listened to Brazilian music early in the week; smooth jazz late.
Neither took a lot of concentration, so the rated count is back up over
30 for the first time since I took sick. Still feel lousy, although the
symptoms are less specific. Getting old and creaky, I guess.

Herb Alpert & the Tijuana Brass: The Lonely Bull
(1962 [2005], Shout! Factory). The graphic designers did a wonderful
job on these reissues, framing the original covers with the fancy
"signature series" pseudo-binding. But "Tijuana Sauerkraut," with
its waltz time and biergarten aesthetic, is still third rate kitsch.
C+

Herb Alpert's Tijuana Brass: South of the Border
(1964 [2005], Shout! Factory). A more consistent album, which means
that the filler doesn't break down so bad, even when they do "Hello
Dolly" and the Beatles; easy listening that's easy to listen to.
B-

Herb Alpert & the Tijuana Brass: Lost Treasures
(1963-74 [2005], Shout! Factory): All fake plastic, natch, some with
the consistency of cheese puffs. Such malaprops as "Raindrops Keep
Falling on My Head" and "Flowers on the Wall" and "Killing Me Softly"
are too ambiguous to be comedy material, but they can be taken that
way. These things, after all, were left in the attic for a reason.
The vocals, in particular, show why he never went that way. Now
they're kitsch. I'm more amused than my grade lets on, but I don't
expect you to be. C

Chico Buarque: Personalidade ([1987], Polygram).
Most of this sounds like smart tropicalia; i.e., samba pushed harder
and further than it's meant to go. Slow stuff less compelling. Don't
have dates, but Buarque recorded regularly for Polygram from 1970-80,
but little (if anything) during the '80s.
B+

Nat King Cole: The World of Nat King Cole (1944-91
[2005], Capitol): I find it really annoying that this doesn't have
dates. (Found chart information in the publicity.) Cole's period with
Capitol ran from 1943-64, and those years apply pretty consistently
for his many career-spanning comps, so they can be assumed here. The
1991 date comes from Natalie Cole's version of "Unforgettable" --
that's when she added her vocals to an unfinished track, constructing
an after-the-fact duet with her father.
A

Classic Judy Garland: The Capitol Years 1955-1965
(1955-65 [2002], Capitol, 2CD). Not a singer I particularly noticed
while growing up, probably because I viewed her as a movie star and
had little regard for movie music (still a valid position, don't
you think?). Turns out she had other stakes -- on stage and on TV,
the former of little concern, the latter one I somehow missed. At
any rate, I find this collection terribly arch. I don't doubt that
she was a helluva singer. Also don't much care. This is the only
thing I have by her, so I have no idea how representative it is.
B-

Astrud Gilberto: Compact Jazz (1963-67 [1987],
Verve). Two classics. "The Girl From Ipanema," of course: her
vibratoless second-language voice is perfectly clear after
husband João struggles with the first verse, and forms a bridge
to Stan Getz' transcendental sax solo. The other is "Summer
Samba" -- as delightful as anything in the genre. B+

Vijay Iyer & amp; Mike Ladd: In What Language?
(2003, Pi). I've been hearing a lot about Iyer's piano, and it lives
up to reputation. Ladd adds words. I don't get them all, and wish
I had more time to do so, but this is cearly pathbreaking. Will
consider it more, but for now I'm impressed. A-

Daniela Mercury (1998, Eldorado). One of the main
singers from Bahia. (One of these cuts was on the Rough Guide Bahia
comp.) This is a Brazilian release, everything in Portuguese. Songs
include Gilberto Gil and Carlinhos Brown. Pretty good. B+

Helen Merrill: Compact Jazz (1954-58 [1987],
Mercury). Old, out-of-print compilation, from what is likely her
most prime period. The opening "You'd Be So Nice to Come Home To,"
with Clifford Brown, is classic. Haven't quite connected with the
slow stuff yet. B+

Scissor Sisters (2004, Universal). "Best Buy
Radio" describes them as "genre-busting." AMG describes them as
"a genre and gender-defying mix of rock, pop, and dance inspired
by burlesque, drag queens, and glam rock." Well, they sound like
the Bee Gees to me -- don't sing as well, got a better bassist,
pose more, aren't as danceable. "T*ts on the Radio" sounds like
a taunt to radio programmers rather than a critique. Falsetto
is timeless, but evidently they depend on an actual female to
achieve it -- that's more "gender-defying" than having a band
of sisters where four-fifths are male. Aside from the last song
they manage to keep a beat and flash pop without flaunting it,
so while it's a '70s throwback it's not unwelcome -- it's not
like the Bee Gees have been doing anything for us lately, nor
Roger Waters (who provides the one cover). The finale's called
"Return to Oz" -- maybe it's meant to be awful? B+

Swing Out Sister: Where Our Love Grows (2004,
Shanachie). Brilliant multipart harmony pop group, dating back
to the '80s. The back cover promises "endless summer days and
jazzy, soulful reveries . . . the Lounge Motown of your dreams."
But I don't recall ever having dreams like that. B

ZZ Top: Mescalero (2003, RCA). This bangs hard right
out of the box, and doesn't let up. It waxes bluesier than they've
done in a long time. I note a four-year hiatus from their last one.
We know from Deguello that rest does them good. This may be
their best one since their best-ever. "Liquor" sounds like a rougher,
nastier outtake. Then, unannounced, they do "As Time Goes By," with
steel guitar. A-

Also added grades for some old LPs. This was mostly based on digging
through old writings, plus the power of memory (for better or worse).

Got a letter questioning why we dropped the review of Merle Haggard,
This Is Merle Haggard (Music Club) from the Christgau website --
the record, originally graded A, turned out to be re-recordings of old,
classic hits, which even though they sounded pretty good opened up some
thorny issues. The question was: "Why is that a bad thing? If the disc
is good and is a bargain, why not review it? Seriously, I'm wondering.
It's not like Hag hasn't had a gazillion reissues, and someone's got
to slog through them for us." I wrote the following response; thought
it might be worth saving here:

As a working critic (cf. here), I
have doubts that anyone can, must less must, make that slog. I wrote
the Rolling Stone CD Guide entries on Willie Nelson and George Jones
and worked through everything I could find and didn't come close to
getting them all. (Links above, including album lists). Nelson and
Jones have been recording longer than Haggard, although I wouldn't
be surprised if Haggard hasn't recorded more. Haggard has certainly
re-recorded more, although the others have done the same. AMG lists
195 comps for Nelson. I doubt that I've heard 20, and I wouldn't have
heard half that many except for the RS work. (AMG lists 171 Haggard
comps; I've heard fewer than 10.) On the other hand, I doubt that
I've missed much (Nelson at least; Haggard is another story), since
most of these things are redundant. Most are also out-of-print.
Many are by fly-by-night labels, and even reputable labels often
omit discographical info. (Proper's Nelson comp, Broken Promises,
comes with a long biographical essay on Nelson that's pretty good,
but doesn't bother to explain where any of the music comes from.
Same thing for their George By Jones, but they do a good job of
documenting their sources for pre-1952 music, which is the bulk of
their catalog.) Bootlegs, radio shots, transcriptions, demos, all
sorts of redundancies muddy the picture further. Sometimes these
variations are of genuine interest, but critics need help to know
where things come from and why they're being reissued. Otherwise
it's real hard to tell, just from the sound, what you're dealing
with. I remember that I could tell that there was something wrong
with Haggard's For the Record (1999, BNA) because his 1999 voice
wasn't the same as his 1970 voice, but it was only the fine print
that confirmed that these were re-recordings. I don't know the
Music Club Haggard comp, but the label in general produced very
good-sounding comps with very little documentation, and in this
case the label engaged in something very close to fraud. The big
problem with fighting fraud in this business is that there's too
much of it out there.

Maybe if the label had extended the title to something like This
Is Merle Haggard ... Re-recording His Old Hits Because He Ain't Got
No New Ones" the record would have deserved a proper appraisal. Or
maybe not.

BTW, The Essential Merle Haggard: The Epic Years is a good,
useful comp -- picks the right songs from albums with lots of
weak spots in them, and his aging relative to the Capitols adds
to his persona. The Capitol/Rhino comps that came out in 1990
are classic; the 4CD box is de trop. Haven't heard the more
recent Capitol comps, which look to be redundant. I've never
heard a MCA comp I like, although there are good songs from
that period. I have Hip-O's Ultimate Merle Haggard down as
an A-, although I can't guarantee its authenticity.

I was struck by a line from Allen Barra, in a Salon piece on
"American Idols": "As a nation, we've become like the detective
in Memento: our memories stop at a certain point in the
past and we seem incapable of creating new ones."

What with his constant battling of smut and child slavery and
human cloning and stem cell research and anything with the slightest
whiff of abortion, you'd think that Senator Sam Brownback wouldn't
have time for fomenting wars, but that's just another of his pet
issues. A few weeks ago he was chomping at the bit to topple the
government of Iran, but now he's set his sights on easier game:
Syria. Now he's accusing Syria for the revolt in Iraq: "I don't
want to discount the Iranian role, but even with the Iranians,
the ties to command-and-control of these operations go back onto
Syrian soil." Brownback went on to state that he will work "to
support democratic movements in Syria by funding opposition groups."
He has similar ties to anti-Iran groups, and longstanding ties to
Ahmad Challabi and company viz. Iraq.

Meanwhile, a Lebanese alliance including Maronite and Druze
political parties has accused Syria of assassinating former Prime
Minister Rafiq al-Hariri. Israel has accused Syria of responsibility
for the latest suicide bombing, which otherwise provided a convenient
excuse to stall on commitments negotiated with Abu Mazen. And more
American far-right nutcases like Brownback are piling on. This
convergence of opposition strikes me as very suspicious, like
we're witnessing the sinking of the Maine or the Gulf of Tonkin
incident, with no more clue now than then. I don't have any real
idea what goes on in Syria, but it's worth keeping in mind that
prominent among the enemies of Syria's regime are Salafist terror
groups like Al-Qaeda. Syria also has a past history of allying
with the U.S. against Saddam Hussein's regime in Iraq, and of
countering the PLO in Lebanon. Following the 9/11 attacks Syria
turned over to the U.S. a lot of anti-terrorist intelligence info,
and some degree of cooperation continues, as shown by Syria's
recent capture and extradition of Saddam Hussein's half-brother.

So it doesn't make any sense that Syria would choose now to
unleash a wave of assassinations and suicide bombings to provoke
its already hostile neighbors further. On the other hand, those
neighbors each have their own reasons for rattling sabers. It
all looks fishy to me, and now that Brownback's jumped in it
smells too.

Movie: The Aviator. One thing this biopic of the
life of Howard Hughes shows is that Martin Scorsese has arrived at
the level where he can afford to stage huge and lavish historical
dramas. The Hollywood parties alone would strain many of his earlier
budgets, not to mention the airplanes and their fabulous crashes.
Hughes makes for an interesting story, especially given that these
days he is associated with little more than Las Vegas. But there is
also something merely idiosyncratic about his aviation prowess, or
for that matter his movie career. The two big planes at the center
of this story were advanced in obsolete ways: they lost out to jets,
which ironically was the thing Hughes became most famous for at TWA --
and which ultimately cost him control of the company, but that story
is past the end reel here. As for his phobias, they are abundantly
on display here, but not well explained. The flashback of his mother
quarantining him may be emblematic of the problem but in itself isn't
much of an analysis. The point, such as it is, could have been made
more economically. The Owen Brewster scenes are amusing, especially
given how orthodox free market dogma has become, but then this was
well before the breakup of AT&T -- a company with a huge vested
interest in the idea that monopoly was the most efficient system
possible. Aside from the phobia sequences, everything else was well
done -- the dinner at the Hepburn manse was one scene that sticks
out. But when you're done what more do you have than an extravagantly
lurid segment of Lifestyles of the Rich and Famous? B+